1,400 Indian teachers resign over fake qualifications
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ABOUT 1,400 primary school teachers in an eastern Indian state have quit in recent months amid an investigation into fake qualifications, an education official said yesterday.
More resignations are likely before the end of an amnesty period that allows teachers in Bihar to quit to avoid legal action for falsifying their degrees, state education department principal secretary R. K. Mahajan said.
In May, the high court ordered an investigation into the state’s 350,000 primary teachers on concerns that up to 25,000 of them had joined government schools without proper training.
Resignations poured in as the probe got under way, with officials scrutinizing teachers’ CVs, before the court last month ordered the amnesty, which ends on Thursday.
“The 1,400 resignations came before the court order on an amnesty,” Mahajan said.
“We’ll know the final number of teachers who took advantage of the reprieve after the amnesty ends,” he said.
Mahajan said he didn’t think the final number would be problematic, and that “there will be no vacuum in the education system,” but he warned of severe action against teachers who decided to stay put with fake certificates, saying “this is a criminal act. They may face even jail.”
“The investigation is verifying qualifications of all teachers who joined since 2006,” following a recruitment drive by the state government.
The issue made headlines last month after Delhi’s law minister, Jitendra Singh Tomar, was arrested for allegedly lying about his degrees.
The quality of education, particularly in rural areas, is a major problem in India. Many teachers also fail to show up to class regularly, leaving colleagues overburdened.
More than half of children in rural areas are still unable to read basic text in their own language after completing five years of government schooling, according to an annual study by research group Pratham.
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